Meetings start

On the monday the real work started. We all met at the school and after having left our things in our main room we all went down to meet Jan the director of the school. He made a short speech, ably translated by Dominika, and then graciously accepted the presents that everyone had brought him from their respective countries.

We had brought him some ceramic "pagessos", representative of the traditional costumes worn in the past in the Terres de l'Ebre. We had to explain briefly the history of the figures and this prompted Jan to ask the question, "are all women in Spain like this?" He was of course joking.

Once this reception was over, coffee and biscuits, we all went back to the classroom that was to be our working home for the rest of the week.

After some brief comments we then started our tour of the school. We visited all the areas of the school, even the gym and the snack area. In each classroom we all went in and then one person from each country made a brief presentation of the people from that country.

In the computer room the students were actually looking at some of the pages that we had made. When I asked one group of girls which Spanish boy they liked the only one they could remember, apart from saying they were all disappointing, was Ferran... because he had posed in his swimming shorts.

The other thing that made me smile was that they said that the boys were disappointing but also that all the Spanish girls were really attractive and that this made them nervous!

We noticed various things that stood out as being different but perhaps the two things that were most obvious were for me firstly the way in which the students all stood up in silence when we came into their classrooms. Their respectful way of speaking and answering questions was a great contrast for us the Spanish. Secondly I also noticed how a lot of the students seemed to spend a lot of the time sitting around in the corridors, normally on the floor. Despite this casual attitude at first glance they were never a nuisance or a problem.

Once we had finised the tour we went back to our room and then... to lunch.

Every day of the week we had lunch in the primary school that is opposite the school. It was interesting to go there every day and eat in a normal school canteen. The food we were given was really very good and we even found time to have some fun before lunch.